Uganda celebrates African ICT week

Uganda has joined the entire continent in commemorating the week, which resumes today, 19 November, and ends on Saturday, 24 November 2012. It is held under the theme, "Promoting Pan-Africanism and Africa Renaissance through ICT."

Uganda Minister for ICT, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, hailed the initiative.

"The general objective of organising the Africa Information and Communications Technology Week is to arouse the interest of the African populations to the use of ICTs for a successful transformation of Africa from an agricultural society to a knowledge society.

"Other objectives include encouraging people to develop informed opinions about technological services, leverage ICT as a tool for an informed Africa society, and promote greater ICT awareness among communities, usage of technology in various sub areas and also attracting more investment in ICT," Rugunda said.

Accordingly the African Union and Organisation of Economic Integration adopted the African ICT Week with the aim of providing a constant reflection of the gains Africa has made in harnessing ICT to realize a knowledge-based economy.

The week aims at demonstrating the values and advantages of communicating digitally and generally how ICTs could improve the quality of life.

Rugunda says that in this digital or information age the convergence of ICT has given Africans unified platforms for processing, storing, transmitting and disseminating information to be able to transcend to better heights.